'John Tognolini has been a rare voice and witness for justice in Australia, chronicling the struggles of Indigenous Australians and veterans and the deceptions of power from behind the facades of a society that prefers not to know. I salute him.'
John Pilger

In transmitting President Richard Nixon's orders for a "massive" bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, &...

Pageviews last month

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Mark Steel: You can't just shut us up now that Margaret Thatcher's dead

If someone robs your house, you don’t say:
“I disagreed with the burglar’s policy, of tying me to a chair. But I did
admire his convictions.”

Maybe a more modern way of broadcasting the
news would have been for Davina McCall to announce it, saying: “She’s gone, but
let’s have a look at some of her best bits.” Then we could see her denouncing
Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and befriending General Pinochet.

Instead it
began as expected, with the Hurds, Howes and Archers phoning in their “remarkables” and “historics”, and we were
reminded how she brought down the Berlin Wall and rescued Britain, then an
article in The Times
claimed she was responsible for ending apartheid, and it seemed by today we’d
be hearing she stopped Gibraltar being invaded by Daleks and made our goldfish
feel proud to be British and took 8 for 35 against Australia to win the Ashes.

“Even those who disagreed with her, respected her as a conviction politician”, it was said many
times, as if everyone would participate in the mourning. But soon it was
impossible to pretend there was a respectful consensus, not because of the odd
party in the street, but from a widespread and considered contempt. In many
areas it must have been confusing for Jehovah’s Witnesses, as every time they
knocked on a door and asked, “Have you heard the good news”, they’d be told
“Yes mate, I have, do you want to come in for a beer?”

Before long
came the complaints, such as Tony Blair saying: “Even if you disagree with
someone very strongly, at the moment of their passing you should show some respect.” Presumably then, when Bin Laden was killed, Blair’s statement was: “Although I
didn’t agree with Osama’s policies, he was a conviction terrorist, a colourful
character whose short films were not only fun but educational as well. He will
be sadly missed.”

The
disrespect was inevitable, as millions were opposed to her not because they
disagreed with her, but because she’d helped to ruin their lives. If someone robs your
house, you don’t say: “I disagreed with the burglar’s policy, of tying me to a
chair with gaffer tape and stripping the place bare, even taking the pickled
onions, which I consider to be divisive. But I did admire his convictions.”

For example,
a Chilean woman living in Britain was quoted in The Nation magazine, saying: “The Thatcher
government directly supported Pinochet’s murderous regime, financially, via military
support, even military training. Members of my family were tortured and
murdered under Pinochet, who was one of Thatcher’s closest allies and friend.
Those of us celebrating are the ones who suffered deeply.” Yes, but she was
able to buy shares in British Gas so she was better off in other ways. In so
many areas, the party that insists we show compassion for their departed
heroine made a virtue of showing none when she was their leader. She didn’t
just create unemployment, she gloried in it. Her supporters in the City
revelled in their unearned wealth all the more because they could jeer at those
with nothing.

But this week Thatcher fans have been
unrestrained in their abuse for anyone not displaying “compassion”. Maybe we
should give them the benefit of the doubt and accept they’ve just discovered
it. They’re all going to the doctors saying: “I’ve been getting this strange
sort of caring feeling towards someone who isn’t me. Do I need antibiotics?” If
they’re puzzled as to why there isn’t universal sadness this week, maybe they
should visit Corby. It’s a town that was built in the 1930s, entirely round a
steelworks, and thousands of unemployed Scots moved there for the work. As a
result its people still have a strong Scottish accent, even though it’s in
Northamptonshire.

But in 1980 Margaret Thatcher’s government
shut down most of the steel industry, as part of her plan to break the unions,
and the effect on Corby was like someone taking control of the Lake District
and concreting in the lakes.

I was there to record a radio show about
the town, and met Don and Irene, both in their seventies, at the Grampian Club.
Don’s father had walked to Corby from Larkhall, near Glasgow, in 1932. I
mentioned the steel strike and plant closure to Don, but he gestured as if it
had somehow passed him by. It would have to be mentioned in the show, so I
tried to find someone in the town with a story, an anecdote, something. But no
one wanted to say a thing about it. During the recording, I asked if anyone had
a story to tell from those days, but no one did, until it felt as if the whole
audience collectively passed a motion that went: “I think you’d best move on to
another subject, Mark.”

Afterwards in the bar, Irene told me: “We
weren’t being rude, love, when we didn’t have a lot to say about the closure.
But it wasn’t an easy time. Don marched from Corby to London with a banner. It
made him angry about everything, we split up for a year because it was too much
to live with. But we were lucky, two of our closest friends committed suicide
in the months after the closure. So people would rather forget about those
times really. But apart from that we really enjoyed the show.”

Still, even those who disagree with her
policies, will surely commend her achievements.

Strangely,
it’s now her supporters who are insulting her memory, with a funeral paid for by the taxpayer. Surely it would be more
fitting to leave her where she is, and say: “If you can’t stand on your own two
feet, you can't expect help from the state.”

No comments:

John Tognolini's YouTube Channel

Follow by Email

Search Togs's Place.Com

Follow me on Twitter

John/Togs Tognolini

"A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction." Graham Greene

Guests I've had on Radio.

Russell Crowe, Amanda Dole and myself outside Radio Redfern, May Day 1989. Russell had just performed a few songs on my show, Radio Solidarity. Amanda is an organiser for the National Union of Workers.

Recent Posts

Subscribe to RSS headline updates from: Powered by FeedBurner

Green Left Weekly

Navigating Togs's Place.Com

Togs's Place.Com is a massive blog/web site. To get around and find articles you want or just explore, use the SEARCH BLOG, if you enter Noam Chomsky, you'll not only come up with numerous articles, speeches, interviews by and with Chomsky, but also being referred to in articles by Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Naomi Kline and myself. With Blogger you've got to scroll down from the most recent till the oldest. Every posting has a label ie, New Romans;Middle East from May 18 07 to today, this is a new system I've adopted for labels, previous labels on this topic were New Romans;Middle East 4, 3, 2, 1. These numbers go backwards to when I started this site in October 2006. New Romans;Middle East from May 18 07 to today will relabeled New Romans;Middle East from May 18 to June 10 07 for easy reference and the new label will be New Romans;Middle East from June 10 07 to today. The Recent Posts is the quick link to my Recent Postings. The Links can take you to 170 different web sites in Australia and around the World.

It's been a learning experience for me operating this blog but there is an insatiable hunger for alternative news and opinion on a range of issues in Australia that is often ignored or sidelined by the corporate media and an increasing self censored and Murdoch managed ABC.

Journalists and Writers I Like.

"Bread and work and love, the poor man’s trinity, and by all three needs they chain him down." Christina Stead 1902-1983 Seven Poor Men of Sydney

"Every government is run by liars and nothing should be believed." I.F.Stone 1907-89

"I have made more friends for American culture than the State Department. Certainly I have made fewer enemies, but that isn't very difficult." Arthur Miler 1915-2005

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell 1903-50

"It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understandig the hidden agendas of the message that surrounds it." John Pilger

"Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war - for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more." Joesph Heller 1923-99

"Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism." Graham Greene 1904-91

"My experience in the First World War and now the Second World War [his son Barney was killed in the Battle of Singapore] changed my outlook on things. It is hard to believe that there is a God. I feel the Bible is a book written by man but for the purpose of preying on a person’s conscience, and to confuse him. Anyone who taken part in a bayonet charge (and I have) [Gallipoli], and has managed to retain his proper senses, must doubt the truth of the Bible and the powers of God, if one exists. And considering the many hundreds of different religions that there are in this world of ours, and the fact that many religions have caused terrible wars and hatreds throughout the world, and that many religions that have hoarded tremendous wealth and property while people inside and outside religion are starving , it is difficult to remain a believer. No Sir, there is no God, it is only a myth." Albert Facey 1894-1982 A Fortunate Life

"Now take my case. I’m twenty-nine and have two brothers—one in the Liberal Party and one serving six years for rape and arson. My sister Peg is on the streets and Dad lives off her earnings. Mum is pregnant by the boarder and because of this Dad won’t marry her. Last night I got engaged to an ex-prostitute and I wish to be fair to her: should I tell her about my brother in the Liberal Party." David Ireland 1927- The Unknown Industrial Prisoner

"Prime Minster Howard I’ve heard You met George Bush and the Pope too, I understand, Oh I liked the Pope much better, I only had to kiss his hand." L’Amour Denis Kevans 1939-2005

"The first law of journalism-to confirm existing prejudice rather than contradict it." Alexander Cockburn

"The Labour Party [ALP], starting with a band of inspired Socialists, degenerated into a vast machine for capturing political power, but did not know how to use the power when attained except for the profit of individuals[...] Such is the history of all Labour organisations in Australia, and not because they are Australian , but because they are Labour..." Victor Gordon Childe 1892-1957, How Labour Governs

"The trouble with a free market economy is that it requires so many policemen to make it work." Neal Ascherson, 1932- Games with the Shadows, Policing the Marketplace.

"The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. " Major General Smedley Butler,1881-1940

"What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one." Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956

"Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?" Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

[Battler]" a conscientious person working against many odds to make a living; one whose life is a constant struggle.’ Battlers maybe men or women; black or white. They rarely deal with racism (the negative side of our tradition) because they sympathise with anyone facing adversity or unfair criticism. The term ‘battler’ is a state of mind-a traditional attitude which goes back to the convict era, when the battler was on a flogging to nothing but fiddled around the rules and held his masters in contempt. The battlers are aware that they are being lied to by....politicians; and they suspect that Keating’s warning that Australia could become a banana republic is in fact, happening before their eyes." Frank Hardy 1917-1994. Retreat Australia Fair 1990

I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer. Brendan Behan 1923-64

“I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunately, I am not a banker or an accountant. I feel that there is a time when a political statement needs to be made and I make it.” Arundhati Roy